


There but for the Grace (Falls the Shadow: the Through a Glass Darkly Mix)

by arysteia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Road Not Taken, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2012-09-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/pseuds/arysteia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Dean Winchester ever wanted was for his family to stick around, but somehow he's never enough.  John dies, Mary lives, Sam still leaves Dean behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There but for the Grace (Falls the Shadow: the Through a Glass Darkly Mix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [falls the shadow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/64790) by [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie). 



> This story was written for Remix_Redux.
> 
> I found this year's remix a real challenge, but in the end I settled upon, and became very fond of, an AU story exploring what might have happened in Dean's and Sam's little world had one key detail of their past changed. I took that same AU world but told the story from a different POV. It turned out, I think, really quite differently. I'm not sure whether it was so much a case of unreliable narrators, or just the absolute inability of the two (possibly three if we count the person who _didn't_ get to speak, maybe I should do them next, *g*) protagonists to understand each other's feelings or motives. But that's what I _love_ about the Remix.

Kids aren't supposed to remember much before about four or five, but Dean recalls his childhood perfectly. A girlfriend fresh out of Psych told him once that it was impossible, that he'd concocted a fantasy memory from stories he'd heard from the adults in his life. It wasn't the only reason he broke up with her, but it was up there. If she didn't know him well enough to know there _were_ no adults in his life, then there wasn't much more to say.

He remembers playing in the yard with his dad, running and wrestling and tossing round a football, and spraying each other with the garden hose on hot summer days. He remembers the night his mom told him he was going to have a little brother or sister, over sweet and sour pork in a Chinese restaurant. He was more interested in heading over to say hi to the fish swimming round in their giant tank, but his dad seemed pretty excited, and his mom was smiling like a baby was better than your own angelfish, so he said yeah, he guessed that'd be okay.

He remembers helping to decorate the nursery, his mom sitting drinking warm milk on a big chair in the corner, pillows propping up her sore back and a stool under her feet, while he and his dad did the stencils and hung the mobile. He wasn't too impressed they were giving the baby his old crib, but Dad promised to buy him a race car bed, and then he hugged him hard and whispered so Mommy couldn't hear that Dean would always be his firstborn and his favourite, and that being a big brother was the most important job in the world and he was trusting him to do it.

He remembers the night everything changed pretty well too, remembers running out of the house with baby Sammy in his arms. He wasn't even allowed to carry him yet, just sit on the couch and hold him with a pillow under his arm so he could support his head properly. He remembers the flames and the heat and the smoke, and he remembers sitting on the hood of the car, something which absolutely was not allowed, ever, his mom explaining to him that Daddy had gone to be with the angels and wasn't coming back.

She was holding Sammy too tight; his face was all screwed up and he'd start crying any second, Dean could tell. Her eyes were shiny, and she was biting her lip, hard till it was white, like he always did when he'd come off his bike and skinned his knees, so he stood up on the bumper of the car and patted her on the cheek like he'd seen his dad do, and told her not to cry; that everything was going to be okay. And he knew with all the certainty of his four – _nearly five_ – year old heart that it would. He would take care of them. His dad had taught him how to make sure the house was locked up before bed, and where the flashlights and candles and lighters were kept, and how to dial 911 in an emergency. 

He never got the chance though. First Grandma and Grandpa Winchester came down from Oregon. Mommy smiled and acted like she was pleased to see them, but Dean could tell she wasn't really. They took him to the mall while she went to the park with Sammy. He would have rather gone with her, but nobody asked him what he wanted. Grandma bought him scratchy woollen sweaters, and corduroy pants instead of jeans, but then Grandpa winked at him and sent her off by herself to the baby shop to buy stuff for Sammy. He ate a whole double fudge sundae while Grandpa talked about parachuting in over France and shooting bad guys with a machine gun. It was _awesome_.

Mommy got mad when he wouldn't eat his vegetables that night, and made him sit at the teeny little hotel table by himself until he did. He built a forest out of broccoli in his mashed potatoes, and tried not to listen to his mom and Grandma shout at each other in the bathroom. He didn't think moving to Oregon would be so bad; Grandpa had told him all about the tree house he'd built for Daddy when he was Dean's age, and promised to make it bigger so Sammy could fit in too. Grandma and Grandpa were gone when he woke up in the morning.

Then Ms Moseley started coming around and things were even worse. She pinched his cheeks, and cooked disgusting things like fish pie and squash, and poked his feet with her knitting needles when he put them on the coffee table. Daddy had always put his feet on the table – he said you were allowed to, as long as you took your shoes off – and Dean had always done it too when they watched tv together, even though it meant he had to lie down to reach. He jumped up on the couch once, in his stocking feet, and opened his mouth to tell her to get lost, but she just pursed her lips and said she'd wash his mouth out for him if he didn't mind his manners.

He knew his dad would be angry if he knew how much Dean disliked her, he always said you had to be polite to ladies, and Mom was always happier after she came to visit, but Dean hated coming home from school to find her in the kitchen drinking tea. They always stopped talking, and didn't start again till he'd made his chocolate milk and grabbed a cookie and gone upstairs to play. He hated even more the way she held Sammy under the arms and made him stand up in her lap, something Dean wasn't allowed to do because Sammy was getting heavy and Dean wasn't strong enough to hold his weight. Dean watched them, sometimes, from the corridor, and it looked like they were _talking_ , the way they stared into each others eyes. Ms Moseley said that Sam had called her to them, and even though that was just silly it made Dean a little mad at him too. 

Time passed, and Dean got used to not having a dad. It hurt a lot not having anyone to come to career day, but Sally Peters' skank of a mother – and wouldn't Ms Moseley just _bust_ if she knew he knew that word – sent her latest boyfriend and he came _drunk_. Sally cried, and Dean went outside and sat on the steps with her, and thought that maybe things weren't so bad. It was harder realising he didn't really have a _mom_ any more either. He had to be a shepherd in a borrowed bathrobe for the end of year recital because she hadn't had time to make him a costume. He would have forgiven her, though, if she'd actually come like she promised.

Ms Moseley came instead, and explained that Mom was still at work. Dean knew she was lying, because Mom had always gone to work in a dress, and these days she drove off in jeans and one of his dad's old leather jackets, and didn't come back till the next morning. He had to put Sammy to bed himself, and then do the dishes, and put out the trash, and all the other chores Mom would be too tired to do when she got home, with mud in her hair and scratches on her face.

This time she didn't come home for three days, and when she did she had a black eye and her arm was in a sling. He didn't mention the recital, instead saying, "Next time let me come with you. I can help." 

"You do help," was all she said back. "You look after Sam, and you look after me when I get home. That's enough." 

It wasn't enough though, not really, and even with his paper round and the time he spent stacking shelves down at the supermarket he only had enough money to keep Sammy in Lucky Charms, not pay the bills that kept piling up in the kitchen. The phone was the first thing to go, but not before Mom's boss called and told him to tell her not to bother coming in, he'd post her last cheque.

Finally one day Mom packed everything that would fit into the trunk and back seat of the Impala, jamming Sammy in as well. He moaned about it, but Dean was older and called shotgun on the passenger seat. He'd damned well earned it. Sam waved goodbye cheerfully when they hit the _Leaving Lawrence_ sign, but Dean just kept his head down and started rummaging through the shoebox full of cassette tapes he'd managed to grab. Mom winced when he put on his dad's copy of Zeppelin IV. He ignored her, and when they hit the interstate and headed east, confirming his suspicion they weren't going to Oregon, he turned the volume up and didn't speak to her for the next nine and a half hours. 

Wisconsin was actually kind of cool, in its own way, but being rid of Ms Moseley barely made up for being saddled with "Aunt" Ellen, who had no hesitation in taking a wooden spoon to his backside when she thought he was giving his mother cheek, which was often, or when she caught him sneaking a beer or getting in a game of pool or poker with the customers, which was also fairly often. Sam was a good brother, and always took Dean's side when he got in fights with Ellen's daughter Jo, who was a gigantic pain in the ass, but he knew secrets Mom never told Dean and wouldn't share them, and that just wasn't right.

Dean could hear them late at night, as he struggled through his trig homework, or whatever exercise in torture was masquerading as an essay that week, whispering in Mom's room. It wasn't very manly to admit, but when he climbed shivering into bed, fingers too numb to hold a pen anymore, it was like a physical pain how much he missed being small enough to just barrel down the hall and jump onto the bed, scattering Mom's papers everywhere. Sam didn't understand, he could feel Mom even when she wasn't there, and he thought he was being considerate sleeping in her room when she was away, so he wouldn't wake Dean up with his nightmares. 

"You're not coming and that's final," Mom said when Dean was eighteen, not even looking up from the shotgun she was stripping and cleaning. "You stay here, and you study for finals. I want to see all 'A's when I get back."

"What do you mean _see_?" Dean demanded. "When was the last time you looked at my report card? And if finals are so important, then wait a week and I'll be done. I've been training with Jo, and Uncle Bill says my aim is perfect, I can help you."

"I have to go _now_ , Dean. I'm closing in on this thing, and a week is too long. And I thought I said I didn't want you training with them."

"At least they want me around!"

"Dean, grow up." Mom sighed exasperatedly. "This thing is killing mothers and stealing babies all across the country. I have to stop it."

"You have to be _my_ mother!" Dean shouted, losing it at last. "You have to worry about _your own_ babies!"

"Dean..." Her face softened a little as she looked at him. "You're all I've ever worried about. Don't you think I would have rather had you with me? I left you here so you'd be safe, so you could have a normal life. I don't want you hunting, I want you to go to one of those colleges you applied to..."

"You don't even know which ones, do you? If it's not Sam and one of his visions, you don't listen to anything we tell you!"

"This thing tried to _take_ your brother," she said, angrily now. "It _killed_ your father. That's more important than your tantrums."

 _Why didn't it kill *you*?_ Dean thought viciously. _At least Dad would have taken me with him._

The door flew open, crashing into the wall and spraying plaster dust everywhere. "Don't you say it!" Sam shouted, eyes blazing. "Don't you _dare_ say it."

"I wasn't going to say it," Dean shouted back, rounding on Sam. "And get out of my head, you little freak."

Sam flinched, but Mom only smiled sadly, zipping up her bag. "I ask myself that question every day, Dean," she said calmly, as though she was the psychic one. "Come on, Sam, you ready?"

Dean noticed then that Sam was dressed and holding a bag of his own. "You're taking _him_?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"I need him," Mom said coldly.

"He's fourteen! What about _his_ normal life?"

"He isn't going to _have_ a normal life. You know that. Not till this is over."

"Or until you're both dead!" Dean spat. "Sam, for God's sake..."

"I have to do this, Dean," Sam said. "This is what I was born for."

"Who told you that? Missouri?" Dean was shaking, he was so mad. "You can do anything you want, you can go to college too. I'll work for a couple of years and we can go together."

"I don't want to go to college, Dean, I want to do this," Sam said, and he picked up Mom's bag and walked out the door without looking back.

"Study hard, honey," Mom said, kissing Dean on the head. "Good luck for your exams. We'll see you when we get back."

"Don't come back," Dean said calmly. 

"Dean..."

"I mean it. This is my home. You only pass through. If you leave now, don't come back."

"I guess that's fair," Mary Winchester said, and she closed the door behind her.

* * *

Dean heard the Impala pull in from out back, engine still running as distinctive as ever, but kept working on the new carburettor he was fitting to his own car. Mom and Sam had passed through over the years, but always during term time when he was away at school. If they wanted to speak to Ellen or Bill about something, he wasn't going to make a scene about it. It wasn't till he felt a booted foot kick his leg that he rolled out from under the car and stood up.

He found himself looking at a man he barely recognised. He had to look up to do it too, which only made him madder.

"What the hell are you doing here, little brother?" he snapped.

"What?" Sam said like it was funny. "A man can't visit his _big_ brother?"

"I haven't seen you in four years, Sam, and last I heard you were a big shot in the hunting world with his own connections and no need of a civilian to slow him down, so no."

Sam stopped smiling. "Mom's missing," he said.

"What?" Dean wiped his oily hands on his shirt. "Missing where? Wasn't she with you?"

"Dude, I'm eighteen years old. I do occasionally go out without my _mom_."

He looked so ridiculously earnest Dean wanted to laugh. "So she's working. She'll be back in a couple of days."

"She's been gone three weeks."

"Fuck." Dean let anger hide the worry in his voice. "And you wait that long to let me know? You ever hear of a phone, Sammy?"

"Would you have answered if I'd called?"

"Whatever, man," Dean said. He refused to feel guilty for a path that Sam had chosen. "Let me know when you find her."

Sam looked scandalised. "I need you to come with me, Dean. I can't do this on my own."

"Sure you can. You're the one with all the skills and the experience."

"Yeah, well I don't want to."

Dean sighed. "I can't just up and leave, Sam. Some of us _work_ for a living, you know."

Sam grinned like it was in the bag. "I spoke to Jo, she'll cover your shifts. It's _Mom_ , Dean." 

"I've got an interview on Monday, Sammy," Dean said, already feeling defeated. "For a job I _really_ want. It's important."

Sam grabbed his arm and started dragging him back inside. When he smiled he looked like Dean's baby brother again, and not a stranger. "We'll be back in time, I promise."


End file.
